1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device, and particularly a liquid crystal display device having an operation processing function.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional liquid crystal display device (LCD) comprises a pair of glass substrates and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. A pixel electrode, a switching element and a storage capacitor are provided for every pixel on one of the pair of glass substrates, and data to display pixels (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cdisplay dataxe2x80x9d) are input to the. pixel electrodes through the switching elements, whereby the liquid crystal layer on desired pixels is driven to form an image. Further, signal charges which are first input to pixel electrodes are held by the storage capacitors until next signal charges are input.
However, the conventional liquid crystal display device is fabricated by integrating only the switching elements and storage capacitors as elements for actually driving the liquid crystal layer of the respective pixels as described above, and thus it has merely the function of displaying display data corresponding the image format thereof.
Accordingly, in order to convert the image format, improve the image quality, perform the image processing of compressed signals, etc., an external LSI (large scale integrated circuit) having the above-described image processing function must be prepared and installed in a liquid crystal display device. As a result, the number of mounting steps is increased and the productivity of the liquid crystal display is reduced. In addition, a number of materials is needed as external elements to manufacture external LSIs, so that the manufacturing cost is extremely increased.
Furthermore, since the external LSI is installed in the liquid crystal device in such a manner as to be secured to the liquid crystal device as a separate element, restriction is imposed on compactness in size and lightness in weight. Still further, since the signal of display data of the liquid crystal display device is processed by the external LSI and then transmitted to the liquid crystal display device again. restriction is imposed on increase of image processing speed.
The present invention has been implemented in view of the foregoing problem, and according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a liquid crystal display device comprising a first substrate having a display area, a second substrate joined to the first substrate through a predetermined gap, and a liquid crystal layer filled and held in the gap between the first substrate and the second substrate located at the opposite side to the first substrate, wherein the display area comprises a number of pixels; an element for driving the liquid crystal layer of each pixel for display is provided on the surface of the first substrate at the liquid crystal display side of each pixel; and operating means for performing predetermined operational processing on data input to each pixel and outputting processed data is provided on the surface of the first substrate at the liquid crystal layer side of the pixel in addition to the element.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a display device comprising a number of pixels, and a circuit for driving the pixels, wherein each of the pixels has a display element and an operating means, the operating means performs predetermined operational processing on the basis of data input thereto and outputting the processed data.
According to the present invention, in addition to the element for displaying pixels, the operating means for performing the predetermined operational processing on the data input to each pixel and outputting the processed data is provided on the surface of the first substrate at the liquid crystal layer side of each pixel, so that each pixel is provided with the operating function. Accordingly, no external LSI is needed, and a work of mounting the external LSI in the liquid crystal display device is unnecessary. Further, if each pixel is provided with the output means for outputting data for displaying pixels (display data) on the basis of the processed data in addition to the operating means, the operational processing can be immediately performed on the data input to a pixel from the external or adjacent pixels to display the pixel concerned. Still further, the present invention is applied not only to the liquid crystal display device, but also to other display devices such as organic EL (electroluminescence) elements, etc.